Learning to Dance in the Rain

Archive for February, 2011

Well, it happened, my baby girl grew up.  In honor of her graduation into toddlerhood we gave her luggage (it’s a pink fluffy backpack with an optional wheelie stand).  We tried to incorporate all of her favorite things into her weekend.  We had a cake adorned with…lollypops of course, and lots of pink and purple décor – since she assumes anything in those colors is automatically hers.  We invited two little girls (4 year olds) that she really adores and wants to be like when she grows up and had fun decorating cups and making smoothies.  For her special family birthday dinner, we had spaghetti and meatballs…and meatballs, and meatballs, and “can I have more meatballs please?” – she would live on meatballs and ham if I let her!

The only traumatic part for Emily was when everyone sang Happy Birthday to which she insisted, “no, no, no, I don’t have to!” and then burst into tears.  That was yesterday, today, she did allow the singing and even clapped and put both hands high in the air as several family members called with their rendition. 

We’re so happy to have her in our family.  She makes us smile all day long with her sense of humor and her relationships to inanimate objects (she’ll apologize to balloons, and insisted tonight that her laminated paper dolls get to see what’s for dinner)!  She is very polite and sweet, and so super ticklish, it’s just so fun to be her parents. 

Happy Birthday sweetheart, we love you!

So by now you’ve probably realized that there may never be a Christmas Newsletter from the Arnotts for 2010…And you know you might just be right, but since I couldn’t completely deprive you people from hearing our goings on, I thought I would at least provide an update.  And maybe if I have it in me I’ll give you a typical to-do list from last year (which should give you a glimpse at why we were so busy.

Emily recently started talking, and I mean full sentences.  She’ll say “what are you doing?” and “I don’t have to” and “Great Job for going potty Luke!  Yay!!” in fact, she has me hiding my giggles almost constantly.  She is so darn cute and says whatever comes to mind or whatever Mommy just said.  She has been spending most of her days recently on the toilet herself.  HER idea, NOT mine!  I didn’t really want to start on the potty training journey just yet, but she really likes the idea that she produces (even gas qualifies in her book), and she gets M&Ms like magic.  In fact, our little girl rather likes living in the land of candy.  Any time she sees a J shape of any kind – woop, we have a candy cane!  And Lollypops are all around us – the security camera at Michael’s (ball shape on the end of a long stick), the boy with the big head in the book, a large screw, a bubble wand – they are all lollypops. 

Luke is also talking a lot more, with his memory still working overtime too.  He will start preschool here pretty soon and is quite good at forming letters, always asking how you spell different words.  He would spend most of his day reading books, if his toy cars and the piano didn’t lure him away.  Dr Seuss has become a favorite with Luke using Seuss’ rhyming style sometimes to ask us questions.  He is learning to read the odd short word and loves numbers too.  He drew his first family picture and we were both very proud of it.  He has been going to speech therapy among other things since April and has made so much progress.  We packed up our TV for several months to help spur on his own speech (and not memorized lines) and it worked wonders!  Around Emily’s 18 month mark he decided she wasn’t so bad of a person and now treats her quite civilly.  It means I can actually leave them alone and not fear for her safety – so liberating!  He has become quite helpful around the house and given mommy the glimpse of what it’s like to have a kid that can do the odd thing for himself!  Tomorrow he will say the scripture in Primary – he’s a Sunbeam!

Grandma and Grandpa Mackrory visited for Christmas and we had so much fun with them.  Emily liked to put her binkies in Grandpa’s front pocket and still talks about how they are at the airport (she must think we’re terrible for just leaving them there for weeks like this).  The biggest event last year was that we moved into a house across town with a yard, an extra bathroom (hear the cheers?) and a garage.  Even though we’re renters we feel like it was handpicked just for us, we just love it so much.

Grandma Arnott and Hannah visited us in May while we skipped off to Hawaii (Happy 7th Anniversary…?) thanks to Timeshares and Air Points!  And we were able to go down to SoCal for an Arnott reunion and to Colorado around Halloween.  We even went out East (really?  that was also last year?) to visit with Andy and KaraLynne for a cousin baby blessing.  Even though the novelty of airplanes and airports has thoroughly worn off on the adults – (the kids still love it!) it was wonderful to visit with so much family and to have some time to unwind amidst the stress of other things.

In other news, Andrew got promoted and is doing quite well at the office, and Cheryl is busy being domestic.  I painted the living room and made throw cushions for the patio, and living room.  And a couple weeks ago I made bread (yeah, I even ground the wheat – and unlike the Little Red Hen I shared my spoils).  That’s my bread in the distance of the chicken soup picture… From that far away you really can’t tell how heavy it is

Well I guess that did end up being like a Christmas Newsletter….I guess….I hope y’all had a Merry Christmas and all that.  We appreciate the kindnesses and support that we have felt from our friends and family this year and hope that we can be there for you in your times of trial and celebration.  We know that we are only the people and parents we are because of our Faith in Jesus Christ and our knowledge of the Gospel.   

I guess if I write a post like this I only need to do it once a year…just kidding…